Tentacle-Free Anime: "Patema Inverted" (2013) Review

I love experimentation in stories. It's great getting to see people get to play with how one tells a story, and how we perceive the story we are watching. Sometimes it's head scratching and other times its head turning. Quite literally, in the case of what I'm going to talk about today. This world often seems inverted in more ways than one, which side do you fall under? The correct side... or the wrong one?

Summary:A world, forever beyond your expectations. In a dark, cramped, underground world of endless tunnels and shafts, people wear protective suits and live out their modest hard and yet happy lives. The princess of the underground community, Patema, goes out exploring as always, inspired by her curiosity of the unknown depths of the world. Her favorite spot is the "danger zone", an area forbidden by the "rule" of the community. Despite being frequently chastised by her caretaker Jii, she cannot hold back her curiosity for the reason behind the rule, because no one would tell her what the "danger" was. When she approaches the hidden "secret", the story begins.[AnimeNewsNetwork.com]

Patema Inverted is a study in how we perceive the world around us, quite literally, when our gravity is shifted and there suddenly becomes a new way of looking at things; different from the way we once knew. On one side you have the normal, straight up, walkers of the Earth, and on the other: the inverts. Those who appear 'upside down' and if they 'fall' they're sucked into the sky. It's during this movie that as the viewer you're continually asked to question: which one is right?

Patema Inverted poster. Click to enlarge.

By the end of the movie there is an answer, but try wrapping your head around it neatly and you’re bound to make it explode from the pressure. And that's one of this movie's two major flaws: the ending, while everything else leading up to it is pretty great, is not that good. While it does answer the question of who is the true invert there's always more questions you can add to that answer that unfortunately make the story fall apart in the end. That definitely doesn't mean this is a bad movie though, and in fact I enjoyed this story so much I actually implore all of you reading this to go see it.

Patema Inverted is actually a wonderful achievement, and I mean it really when I say it's a completely otherworldly experience of truly head turning events. The idea of two civilizations on this planet living so close to one another, one of which could fall into the sky at any moment, is brilliant, and to meet someone like that would be astounding.

Yoshiura who both wrote and directed this film has made a beautiful film, in both animation and story. And while I've been told it's not his best work, since this is all I've seen by him I feel compelled to check out more of his stuff.

The vast underground.

The stand-out scene of the movie is when Age (pronounced Age-ee) and Patema first meet, and the two worlds collide for the first time. We get to see how both perceive the world around them, we see Patema's fear of falling into the sky and Age's excitement at getting to fly in the air. And yet Patema lives a pretty happy life underground, where her people must be in order to protect themselves, and Age lives in an orderly hell where even looking at the sky could cost you your life. Age's world sees the inverts as sinners for being the way they are, and while the concept is great that does unfortunately lead us to the last big sin of this movie: the villain.

Two worlds collide.

There sadly isn't much to say about him, so I'll be brief. The villain of this movie is your 1-D, cookie cutter, take-over-the-world-and-kill-the non-believers kinda guy you always see in most cartoons. You could argue his outlook is because of how long it has been since the inverts and the normals have met with one another, but there was still plenty of room in the movie to get in a quick few lines explaining what his deal really is. It's a damn shame too, as through him I feel we could've learned a lot more about the history of the world Patema and Age inhabit.

However, there is in fact still a rich history to this movie that the characters discover along the way that I enjoyed quite a bit, and (other than the mind-warp that is constant shifting of p.o.v.) it was probably my favorite thing of the movie. I say we could've gotten a lot more out of the villain as far as history is concerned, and I stand by that, but what we do get is enough to clue us in on how this society works without being blatantly told. And I'm at least happy we got that.

A hell by any other name.

There really isn't much more to say about this movie, the direction is spot-on with the different perspectives of each character, the animation is beautiful, the dub isn't too bad at all. There is plenty of character growth for both Patema and Age, but I think it's Age who gets the most in this movie. Which makes sense, having been from a world that literally looks down on the inverts. My biggest gripes are the ending, which could've been worse, and the villain who could've been much better.

One thing I will mention here at the end is that there is technically a prequel to this movie in the form of four 6 minute long episodes titled Patema Inverted: Beginning of the Day but I will tell you just to ignore them entirely. I watched them, and they're all literally scenes taken from the movie and in all honesty pretty much make up the first half of the movie. Just watch the movie and enjoy the splendor that is.